


Absorbed Dose

by Marashete



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adorable broken idiots falling in love, Alcohol, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce likes classical music, Demiromantic Tony, Eventual Relationships, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Being Tony, if you squint really hard at it, though only slight, tony pushes boundaries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:27:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marashete/pseuds/Marashete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's no knight in shining armor, by any definition. But he is enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stochastic Risk

**Author's Note:**

> Absorbed Dose - the amount of radiation absorbed by an object or person.
> 
> This may or may not become a thing. I haven't decided yet. And if it does, I may up the rating. Not sure how much quite yet.  
> Unbeta'd, so please be kind.

The hum of the party would have, just a few months prior, set Bruce on edge and just this side of green. But this wasn't the reason Bruce was on edge. Why he was breathing deep and long and grasping frantically at the threads of himself to keep control.

  
The stranger was dark and insistent, pressing words to Tony's ear that the inventor clearly didn't want to hear. Tony was leaning, in such a subtle cant, away from the man whose broad hand curled lightly over his forearm. Tony had planned this party for friends, a celebration for some odd thing Stark Industries had done. And this man was ruining the fun Tony was having. Bruce could see the uneasy line of Tony's shoulders tighten and made his move forward.

Boldly, he stepped up to Tony's side, between the stranger and Tony as if peeling his presence from Tony's body. He watched the man's hand draw away with no little amount of satisfaction. Bruce put his hand on the small of Tony's back, a familiar, guiding gesture frequently used in the lab, and Tony looked up at him, relief etched onto his face. 

"Pepper wanted to see you," He said, loud enough for the stranger to hear, "are you sober enough to walk?" the next few words were low, reminiscent of the days when Tony had frequently not, in fact, been sober enough to walk. Tony's smile was molasses-slow and rueful.

  
"Unfortunately, I'm sober enough to remember what she wants me for. I planned this party strictly so I wouldn't have to make any speeches and she unwound all that! Pepper-style. Naturally."  Bruce managed a small smile and led him away. He didn't even spare the stranger a glance, boldness extended. He let his hand slip from Tony's back when they got some distance, albeit reluctantly.

He steeled himself to look at Tony, everything in check, "Thought I'd save you from Stranger Danger." he said, leaning in so Tony could hear him over the music, "Pepper doesn't need your stupid, hastily prepped and likely offensive speech. I improvised."

  
"Doctor Banner, you are a deceitful, deceitful soul. And, you wound me: my speeches are tactful and well-rehearsed."

  
Bruce snorted and patted Tony's shoulder, "There's not enough gin in the world for that to be remotely true." Tony grinned, and Bruce didn't miss how he leaned into his touch.

  
They'd been doing this slow dance around each other for a while. Kind of the way a tango begins, partners circling, intense and heady and very near the edge of Bruce's capability to handle 'complicated'.

So he dropped his hand.

  
"I'm going to go... get out of the crowd a bit. If Stranger Danger comes back, yell fire." Tony looked at him wide-eyed, hesitation playing over his features in a half second whirl of thought before he reached out and grabbed Bruce's wrist gently, 

"Actually, ah, do you want to dance?" Bruce snorted at the clever joke, withdrawing his hand, "Not a joke," Tony continued, regarding him with careful, prying eyes.

"Oh."

The inventor drew closer, one hand on Bruce's hip, the other sidling up his arm to clasp firmly with his hand. If Bruce were a giddy teenager, which definitely wasn't his emotional reaction to anything anymore, he'd feel weak at the knees. That was _definitely_ not the kind of reaction Tony Stark could pull from him. Not in a crowd, not at home, not in the teasing little presses of fingers at his hip in the lab —

And when they did begin to dance, Bruce wondered why they hadn't done this a thousand times before. Tony's brown eyes were endlessly warm and regarded Bruce unlike he'd ever seen anyone regard him before. An analytical little rending thing that should have made him feel utterly violated, but it twisted something in him and all he felt was radiating relief.  
Actually, no, not radiating. Never radiating. Bad word, that--

"You're thinking too much, just, let go. You're safe."

"I'm never safe, Tony, I—"

"Bruce."

  
He went quiet, falling into the rhythm Tony set, and distantly wondering how on earth this had happened. The weak-at-the-knees feeling was not passing, and didn't have any likelihood to if Tony kept looking at him like _that_ , like some kind of insurmountable, incomprehensible wonder. Tony smiled slightly and it was all Bruce had not to look at his lips.

  
"Back with me, doc?" he murmured, and Bruce would have just sunk to the floor if he were younger. Given into the melt-like-puddy sensation and melted into Tony.

Before Tony drew away Bruce wondered if he was actually going to kiss him himself.  
Because, look at that, Doctor Bruce Banner, grasping his own destiny by the throat and screaming at it to let him have this one thing. But he didn't.  
Tony pulled away and reached up, tugging at one of Bruce's curls and putting it back in place. His fingers brushed Bruce's cheek and, god damn him, this was so intentional.

"You're in a bit of a need for a haircut, Big Guy." he murmured thoughtfully, "Unless you like the ragged hippie look."

  
Bruce twisted his mouth into a smirk and pointedly ignored how he was flushing, "I actually like 'ragged hippie', and it's staying. Gives the droves of people I sleep with— I mean, free love, man— something to grab onto."

Oh, there it was, the subtle darkening of Tony's eyes as his pupils dilated.

"Filthy." Tony breathed, smirk sharpening as it drew back to reveal teeth. Bruce would have hesitated at the near-mocking tone, but he felt more like pushing it. A rarity.

"What else did you expect from me, Stark?"

"I don't know." he hummed, voice low and thoughtful. "You're a fucking puzzle."


	2. Tensile Stress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony displays miraculous self control, but Bruce is, eventually, as are most things, ductile.

Bruce seemed to view himself as some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare. Tony thought he was more like a Neruda love poem, all carefully crafted syllables of desire and want, and perhaps a bit transfixed with glossy shadows and shades of mourning. 

He could tell when Bruce's control was only a cloth held together by a few taut strands. Tony refused to treat him like a bomb-- Bruce's nature was more like water building on the face of a penny until it breaks.

  
Which wasn't to say that it wouldn't ever break.

  
But Bruce wasn't a fucking Gremlin, or a bomb, or anything as violent and unbidden as a squall. His anger seethed in quiet crescendo, and Tony had learned, albeit slowly, how to read the subtle shifts Bruce tried so desperately to hide.  
Tony could understand bad days; he'd had a few of them, himself. He could understand when necessity called for hiding, squishing, beating down everything to fool yourself into thinking that total control meant that you were coping.

He supposed Bruce had never been adept at coping healthily, and that the angry green child of an alter-ego was about as deep a display of that as he could get.

  
Tony tried to figure out where Bruce kept his emotions; behind his eyes, as the cliche went, seemed too... well, cliche. He also had a theory that Jolly Green kept his own special set of feelings there, too.

  
So he decided he'd find out, and the party was like a gift from the universe, some kind of positive cosmic Karma, and Tony was going to pounce on the opportunity. Except, planning things meant that things were going to go awry. He'd planned this thing specifically so he wouldn't have to be all business, and listen to the pitches of every bastard who thought they could get something out of him. He hadn't expected Bruce to be his knight and savior. Playing the Damsel in Distress tickled Tony's vulgar sense of humor, but he managed to stave off the urge to stick his foot in his mouth.

  
In another moment of more pure cosmic realignment (seriously, he needed to get a Tarot reading done, pay some kind of attention, or something), he'd scooped the doctor into an intimate, chest-to-chest slow swaying dance, and took the few moments he had to begin theorizing further.

  
Muted desire in the pads of Bruce's fingers, pressed into the expensive cotton of Tony's suit jacket. Ever-present anger in the grip of his other hand where it met Tony's, hidden in the bending and whitening of tanned knuckles. Hope and demure, almost reluctant, happiness in the upward curve of his lip. Relief in the reedy tones of his voice. Tony swallowed down the desire to taste the emotions Bruce hid in the crests of his hips, the dimples of his thighs, in the expanse of skin between nipple and navel.

  
Bruce Banner was a fucking puzzle. He was an equation with an improbable, perhaps unattainable solution. He didn't know why he stayed so close, even as the song drew to and end, but he did and Bruce was all easy limbs, and a small, very nearly flirtatious smile that gave way to words that heated Tony's blood.

  
Tony watched the flush spread over Bruce's cheeks and down his jaw, following the cliche lower, until it vanished under his collar.

  
"Thanks, Tony. Gonna actually go, now." Bruce said, and the reluctant-happy smile was there.

Kissing the reluctance away was _not_ an option.

  
Tony let himself touch Bruce, a fleeting farewell brush of his fingers, and wished he could put so much more intent into the press and slide of his fingers against Bruce's shoulder.

  
And beautiful, cryptic Bruce kept that little smile on his face until he, like the trail of his blush, vanished.

  
Vanishing was always something he had been good at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter two! I hope you enjoyed!


	3. Acoustic Spectrum

Tony, Bruce discovered, actually liked cheap beer. Liked it, drank it, offered it. Alcoholism wasn't exactly something that made Bruce's eyes light up, but the distinction between unwinding with a bit of booze and becoming the booze was something that Bruce's scars knew well.

The ease at which Tony popped the cap off the dark bottle, the way he gesticulated with it in wide circles of his wrist and arm, glass aslant with the angle of his cupped palm (and Tony wasn't about to commit so egregious a party foul as to spill his beer, but Bruce saw the liquid slosh dangerously close to the lip of the bottle and flinched anyway), he had a feeling Tony was actually drinking it for the taste.

  
Tony was a social drinker. Tony was a social everything, but the drinking was its own kind of conversation. Whiskey meant 'not right now'. If Tony took the time to mix his drink, he was planning to enjoy the buzz, and a buzzed Tony is a chattier Tony, never mind that it didn't make much sense four drinks in.

  
Bruce wasn't quite sure what Miller Light meant yet. If Tony's arm about his shoulders was a hint, it was a hint of which Bruce was missing the intent. Tony angled toward him with catlike languidity, Tony laughing against his side, Tony (metaphorically) bathing in Bruce's presence, were hints and Bruce didn't want to fitfully hope over them.

  
Really now, what exactly did he hope they meant?

  
Watching Tony was like watching trees bend in the midst of high winds. He was animated chaos. Even when relaxed among friends, Tony was gripped by a manic sort of socialization. Bruce found it kind of endearing.  
Even if he wondered how much of that was a facade. He couldn't fathom any reason for that intricate a front, but then, he wasn't a child billionaire son of a weapons manufacturer.

  
"Immersed, Big Guy?" Tony asked, a vague saunter to his step as he sidled closer. Pulling his eyes away, he caught Natasha's gaze; a soft curious expression tightened the corners of her eyes. He resolutely looked at his toes.  
"A little." He admitted, waving his hand in a dismissive arc that he hoped appeared casual. Tony pressed his lips together but otherwise seemed placated.

  
Bruce should have known better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter. More angst upcoming, likely by Tuesday! maybe even earlier...


	4. Inelastic Collision

Bruce, Tony found, had a tendency to verbally berate himself for minor missteps. A small typo or a stubbed toe earned a mumbled "Stupid Banner." Sometimes even something with a few more expletives like "God damn it, Banner", or "Fucking Christ, Bruce." Tony wasn't sure if it was adorable or heart wrenching.

After Bruce had fumbled a flask, sending it hurtling to the ground to explode outward and unleash the chemicals it contained (all perfectly normal consequences of gravity, and all things Tony had done on limited sleep, and even while fully rested. It happened, sometimes), Tony had decided to intervene in the episode of self-deprecation as it made like the liquid Bruce at spilled and flooded out of his lips.

"Why do you do that?" Bruce paused in his simultaneous litany and frantic clean-up to look at Tony, confusion evident in the slight way his brows drew together. "The verbal self-flogging," Tony clarified, gesturing vaguely in Bruce's direction. The slight furrow in Bruce's brow deepened; he licked his lips, shrugged a shoulder, and dropped his gaze back to the mess of broken glass. Tony watched him sweep up the shards and plop them into a bio-hazard bin.

"I have robots for that," Tony reminded.

"I'm probably more capable than Dummy of holding a broom," Bruce bit back.

"Dummy doesn't have radioactive blood," he countered, perhaps a bit beneath-the-belt, "but suit yourself."

"God, you're an ass sometimes," Bruce sighed, but the soft smile he tried to fight off with a glance down and a flash of teeth took any heat from his words.

"Hi, I'm Tony Stark; have we met?"

Bruce chuckled. The sound was warm and low, threading into his words, "Yep, certified ass."

Tony shrugged, baring his palms, "Been called worse. In fact, that could almost be considered flirting, Banner."

"You'd know if I was flirting with you, Stark." Tony would be damned if there hadn't been a note of flirtation to Bruce's words.

There was a beat of silence before, "Would I?"

And, fuck, the interruption of JARVIS' voice was highly unwelcome, he had been  _getting_ somewhere, damn it, "Doctor Banner, aeration is complete. Shall I display the results?"

Bruce, for all he was worth, held Tony's gaze steadily while he responded, "Please." The moment was broken, then, when Bruce finally looked away. Tony couldn't help but be a little disappointed as Bruce retreated, but then, he wasn't surprised. The remainder of their work was done in as much silence as working with Tony provided.

See: None. If Bruce ever minded, he never said.

In fact, color him unsurprised when Tony spoke again, "Really, why do you do that?"

"Do what, again, Tony?"

"Flay yourself with insults and expletives."

"Oh." The furrow was back, "I've never really noticed myself doing it— I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you."

"Every time you make a mistake that normal people make, it's like you have to punish yourself for being human."

The smile Bruce gave him was a twisted, small thing, full of a bitterness Tony was very nearly surprised to see, "Wouldn't exactly call myself 'normal', or even—"

"If you say 'human', Banner, I swear to Christ I will fucking lose it." Bruce shrugged and the gesture was slow, defeated, complete with an impossibly heavy slump of his shoulders Tony rolled his lips into a thin, displeased line, "The Other Guy doesn't make you inhuman."

The harsh sound Bruce let out was not a laugh, it was only disguised as one, "What part of huge, bright green, and capable of shattering windows with its voice is human, Tony?"

"Technically, I'm part robot."

"Don't compare your fucking engineering to my rage-filled other half," Bruce growled, "Because for all else you might be able to compare, you can get the _shit_ out of your heart and I can't."

"Can't, or haven't tried?" Tony watched the slide of surprise over Bruce's face, quickly amalgamated by muted hurt.

"I—"

"You know what I see, Bruce? I see a scared child and a man who never coped," Tony was pushing it now, "Empathy never needs to be earned. It's a _human_ right."

Bruce sucked in a breath with a jolt and whirled on the balls of his feet, "JARVIS. Panic room. Now." The timbre of the Hulk crept into his voice and Tony almost, _almost_ regretted pushing it. He had, after all, built the room knowing he'd push Bruce when Bruce was inelastic. He'd built the room so Bruce didn't have as much reason to run. But there were more ways to run than physically, and Bruce was practiced in them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's Four!
> 
> Chapter Five is up-in-coming, but I warn you, it starts with some pretty heavy, triggering stuff. I'll warn again before the chapter, and provide a skip point in the fic, for those who don't wish to read it. There's nothing explicit, no concrete images, but there are mentions of previous suicidal thoughts/attempts. I have updated the tags appropriately. That should be up by Sunday.


	5. Conjugate Variables

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the tags. There isn't anything explicit, but even if these things have a chance of triggering you, do yourself a favor and skip it. I tried to make it so that you wouldn't be missing anything plot-wise if you did, so you won't!

Suicidal ideation was not a new thing for Bruce. It wasn't a new thing when the Other Guy had been. He'd been prone to weeks of 'oh just fucking kill yourself' echoing around his head before he had had an actual reason the world would be better off without him.

And oh, he'd tried. He considered the ways, laying on the floor of the panic room, physical scars all eased away by the Hulk's many appearances. He couldn't even have the small things, the emotional collectibles of a scar or patches of mottled skin. He'd wondered once or twice at the implications of brokenness that the Other Guy insisted on healing, or absorbing. He never entertained that thought for very long.

 

** **Skip to here to avoid triggers** **

 

Sitting up was a motion full of empty aches. The anger at Tony's words settled heavy in his stomach as resolve. Tony meant well, always did, but meaning well was a road of good intentions, and everyone knew where that led. Running was an option doomed from its inception. Tony had probably banked on that, on Bruce's reluctance to run conflicting with the panicked necessity to do so.

He was greeted by fucking _freezing_ air when he left the room, made all the more painful by his nakedness. Clothes were folded evenly and stacked on a lab bench. How convenient. He pulled the shirt over his shoulders while he handled his lower body. The methodical, deliberate dressing himself was a welcome distraction.

The lab was as unceasingly unquiet as Tony, humming around him.

“I mean it, though.” Bruce froze, pants half-on. He let himself exhale slowly, shakily, and pulled up and fastened his pants, and turned.

“Tony,” he sighed, swiping his hands over his face, “I'm exhausted. Let's not do this—“ a gesture between them “— right now. Okay? Okay? I just need time to not be angry about this.”

“I— “ Tony sighed nearly as slow as Bruce had and nodded, “I didn't mean to push.”

“That's all you do.” Bruce needled, smirking softly.

“At least you get me.”

“Takes a genius, and here I am.”

Tony's answering laugh was full-bodied, and Bruce couldn't help but join in with his own crackling, relieved laughter.

Tony looked at Bruce with a light expression that suited him much more than the tense, dark thing that had greeted Bruce before, “Finish buttoning up, Green Been.”

“Distracting?” He allowed himself to tease, just a little, just enough, as always.

“Very.” Tony said, eyes following the exposed skin of Bruce's midriff, “In fact, I'd rather...” He shrugged.

And though Bruce dreaded the answer, he prompted, “Rather?”

Tony quirked a brow at Bruce's ( _shit-fucking-bullshit_ ) curiosity, “You figure it out with that big, sexy brain of yours and talk to me later. Let's do science.”

New things were things like Tony's warmth. New things were not always bad things. The way he no longer flinched back, even fractionally, when Tony touched him. How Tony smiled. New things did not always necessitate fleeing. And even though he melted into the routine, if he let himself lean against Tony a little, then, at least he was making it a learning experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter shall be fluff-filled and wonderful, with only a teeny bit of angst. That should be out by Tuesday~!


	6. You're My Favorite Allotrope of Carbon

It's not that Tony had wanted to cause an incident, he just really wanted to have that conversation. Apparently his conversational skills were a bit lacking, but this was something he'd known before. After a few moments of cooling down and mulling it over, he settled on feeling thoroughly shitty. He'd pressed and held shitty past-buttons, and Bruce's past held considerably more quantities of fucked-up than Tony's had, even with the very little Tony knew.

He stood by his opinion (facts!) though, and he wasn't going to take it back. His first peace offering was turning up the heat just a little. The second was the clothes, meticulously folded and placed on the bench nearest the door to the panic room. He made his retreat, space in the lab still resonating with their words, seeking the promise of the warm lick of whiskey down his throat. He was holding his third finger when he went back down, and watched Bruce's slow meandering back to the world of the waking from where he was sitting at his workspace.

Bruce didn't notice him sitting there immediately, unsurprisingly; Tony decided to remedy the not-being-noticed thing. Quickly.

“I mean it, though.” He hadn't meant to sound so defensive, but there it was between them, just past Bruce's initial shock and anger, and into quiet, reluctant, bone-deep tiredness.

“Tony,” And by the way Bruce dragged his name into a sigh, Tony knew he'd started shoving his foot in his mouth again before he'd even gotten the chance to, well, _not_ , “I'm exhausted. Let's not do this—“ Bruce made a vague waving gesture at him and shrugged a shoulder, not meeting his eyes, “— right now. Okay? Okay? I just need time to not be angry about this.”

A thousand contrarian statements gathered in Tony's throat when all he wanted to fish up was an apology for Bruce. He wondered if this was what dams were really built for.

“I didn't mean to push.”

“That's all you do.” Bruce gave him a soft, forgiving smirk, and Tony was obligated to return it, on principle.

“At least you get me.”

“Takes a genius, and here I am.” Bruce slowly rolled a shoulder as he spoke and Tony valiantly kept his eyes on Bruce's face in spite of the flex of very visible muscles under the flesh of his abdomen. He couldn't help the laugh that spilled from him around his relief as the implication of Bruce's words settled in, Bruce's dry humor devastatingly comforting.

“Finish buttoning up, Green Bean.”

“Distracting?” Bruce Banner was a fucking flirt, a shameless, wonderful, beautiful, flirting ass-munch.

Tony made a point to rake his gaze over Bruce's body and, yep, very much liked what he saw, “Very,” He allowed himself to admit, but Bruce wouldn't catch that it was an admittance, “In fact, I'd rather..” he caught himself before foot-in-mouth round two, and let the words trail with a teasing shrug.

“Rather?” Tony brought his eyes back to Bruce's face and catalogued what he found there. Among the usual lines of anger and stress, gentle curiosity, a shade of hope. Bruce's eyes were dark and unusually vulnerable, searching for something Tony couldn't name. So he held his gaze.

“You figure it out with that big, sexy brain of yours, and talk to me later. Let's do science.”

The science was good. Like, really good. Bruce didn't have to make an innuendo of anything; the way he spoke about thermodynamics and inelastic systems was as hot as it got. Tony was caught up in the way Bruce's lips formed the word 'thermonuclear' and not in nearly any of the science now and not even _he_ was so clever as to be able to hide it from Bruce's equal cleverness.

“Tony?”

“Don't mind me, Big Green,” Tony waved his hand dismissively.

“Considering we're sharing a lab and that you're my partner on this peculiarity, I kind of do have to mind you. And, considering you haven't broken the laws of physics in the last half-hour, I'd suggest being a little more alert because I'm working with all I have right now.”

“Details.”

“Are important.” Bruce said—and he shouldn't be _allowed_ to make a grin that cat-like, holy _fuck_ —“Besides, you're no fun if my 'sexy brain—'”and he fucking quoted with his fingers, the _asshole_ —“Makes you go all catatonic.”

“To be fair, your brain is _kind_ of a turn on.” Tony bounced on his toes at the peak of the sentence, quirking his brow in a hopeful invitation. Bruce returned the expression with an even, more sardonic gleam to his eyes.

“I'm still mad, Stark—don't fucking say it, I see you thinking it, do _not_ —and flirting won't fix it.”

“Were we flirting, Doctor?”

Bruce snorted and shook his head, “I was; you were just making faces at me.”He couldn't maintain his deadpan at Tony's betrayed expression and broke into gasping laughter, bracing on the table, “ _Tony_ your _face_ , I—“

“Asshole,” Tony grumbled, without any venom as a smile spread over his lips, “ _Such_ an asshole.”

“Certified,” Bruce affirmed when he was able to speak, grinning lopsidedly, “But you knew that.”

Tony snorted and went over to Bruce's station to look at the numbers he'd been pornographically describing before he turned into an asshole. The familiar rhythm they fell into felt distinctly less familiar in its familiarity—which, Tony admitted, was a shitty description—things between them, left unsaid, still felt burdensome, but Tony relaxed into Bruce as the scientist's posture grew more open, relieved at the comfort.

The peace was nice, even flimsy and not meant to last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I confess, I didn't really expect to turn this into a thing. I have the next chapter partly written, and I'm unsure of where I want to go. Any suggestions? Anything you definitely want to see?


	7. Stratigraphy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dissolution of stress with humor and tears.

Bruce noticed the change slower than he should have. The tense lines of Tony's shoulders, the slow pursing of his lips as the day progressed. It was when Tony finally met his eyes that Bruce felt Tony's mood ripple over his skin. A wild desperation had dilated his pupils, tightened his grip on the biting edge of the table. Bruce noted his fear-whitened knuckles and just as he was about to rest the flat of his palm over the small of Tony's back, Tony dropped his head and a shudder wracked him.

 "Tony--"

 "Fuck--" The response was strangled and one of Tony's hands unclasped from the table and flattened over the arc reactor, muting its glow with fabric and flesh. Tony slowly sunk down, one hand tangling and tugging on his hair so hard it had to be painful, the other remaining the reactor's shield. Bruce sank with him and gently unwound Tony's hand from his hair and placing it over his own chest.

 "I need you to breathe with me, Tony, c'mon." Tony looked up at him with hazy eyes, "Who am I to you?"

 "Bruce." Tony stated flatly, sure of his own assertion.

 "Where are you?"

 "I--" the eyes turned frantic again, wide and dark and so deeply frightened Bruce felt the Other Guy growl behind his eyes.

 "You're in the lab with me, remember? Safe. You feel this?" He rubbed the back of Tony's hand, "This is real. I am real. It's December 19th and you're home."

 Tony squeezed his eyes shut and nodded, taking deep breaths. After a few moments he maneuvered them so they were pressed chest to back, Tony's head tucked under his chin. He ran his fingers over Tony's one outstretched arm, the other holding him carefully against him, mindful not to hold too close to the arc reactor Tony hadn't stopped covering. Bruce wondered who had ruined that trust, created that scar, but didn't dwell too long as the Other Guy elicited another growl. On this, at least, they were in agreement.

 Bruce kept up his stroking as the alarm bled from Tony's body. He still felt the shaking when Tony spoke, "Well, this was an experience."

 "What triggered it?" This was a bad question so soon, but Bruce's curiosity overruled better judgement.

 "Can we file this under Things We Don't Talk About?"

 Bruce hesitated, "That's getting to be a long list, Tones."

 "There's a lot to not talk about." Tony said evenly, drawing away.

 "Maybe we should erase 'Don't' from the title."

 "Pot. Kettle."

 "I know--I wasn't--" Bruce shook his head and looked at Tony, "I want to talk. I need to, probably. And I'd rather talk to you than a shrink."

 Tony sighed, "You started it, Big Guy." And Bruce nodded, nothing left to do but to accept. Tony grabbed his hands just as he started to wring them, thumb pressed into the meat of his own palm. He chuckled softly and nodded again, once.

 "Where do you want me to start?"

 Tony's thumb began a slow sweep over his wrist, "Wherever you need to."

 Bruce was instantly, viciously suspicious, "How much of my file did you read, Tony?"

 "I read your research, and I watched footage. No one's past is a buffet for an information whore like me, least of all yours."

 Bruce looked at Tony open-mouthed and pressed bodily to him, forehead to shoulder, wrists dropping limply over his thighs as Tony pulled him in. Tony didn't know, had never known about all his fucked-up intricacies or his invisible scars or the way sometimes when he couldn't breathe at night it was because instead of her throat being bruised it was his own and instead of her blood and brains on the sidewalk it was his own and all the things he deserved bleeding right out with it.

 He only knew he was babbling because he felt Tony's arms tighten and then he was laughing, choking on his hysteria.

 "Tony--god this is fucking dumb."

 "No it's not." He said, voice uncharacteristically soft.

 "This started with me helping you, not-"

 "Which you are-"

 "Not the Banner's life sucks so let's hold him while he babbles incoherent nonsense and cries a-bit-like-a-bitch pity-party."

"This look on my face, does it look like pity to you? Does it? Empathy, yeah, but pity? Get better at reading my facial expressions, Banner, your life just might depend on it."

 Bruce laughed full-bodied and shuddering as the laughs turned to sobs. Tony continued to hold him and there wasn't enough breath in the world for all the things he needed to feel. Tony just let him keep feeling even as he was pressing a wet spot into his shoulder.

 Despite that he had stolen the show.

 "Talk when you're ready." Tony murmured, rubbing his back in a firm warm sweep from his lumbar vertebrae to his cervical vertebrae and this was okay; Bruce could categorize the sensations by his anatomy, the tingle of Tony's fingers brushing over his vertebrae, his scapula, thumbing over his clavicle and cupping the column of his neck as Bruce drew away. Relaxing under his touch felt natural.

 "My dad called me a monster before anyone else did." Bruce began, softly; the story still had bite. He'd only ever told the story to Betty in its completion, and now she was part of it. Bruce figured she deserved better than that, more than just a starring role in his shitty autobiographical. She was one of the good parts. The consequences of her were not.

 Tony absorbed it and Bruce couldn't help but wonder how long it would be until Tony was just as much another character as Betty was.

 If Bruce wasn't poison, then, with all his issues and baggage and dragging Betty down, then he definitely was now, what with being literally radioactive. He was blood poison. Sweat and semen and tears poison. Smile and pain poison. Love poison. And Tony was taking each dose of Bruce-poison like he needed it--the thought almost, almost enough for selfish-he to wrench himself away. But he was selfish, and so he didn't.

 "You deserve good things, Bruce." Tony said, near-whispered, eyes dark and peering deep and lit with something that twisted Bruce's belly into warm tangles.

 And he was done with _that_ , the drawing feelings forth and letting them whirl through him thing. If he hadn't considered it impossible, Tony leaning in had all sorts of warm implications.

 But, because he didn't deserve it, he drew away and extracted himself from ever-tactile Tony.

 "Your turn to spill, Stark."

 Tony looked almost wounded by the distance, but recovered by rolling his shoulder back and lapsing into that easy cadence of his, all political and all bullshit.

 "Haven't been sleeping too well. It gets worse when I can't sleep."

 There were whole worlds behind whatever the unspecified 'it' was.

 "Nightmares?"

 "In part," Tony admitted, "But those are if I make it to sleep in the first place. Most of the time it's just restlessness."

 Bruce nodded. He could attest to restless.

 "So today's _thing_ ," Again with the non-specificity and vague wave to accentuate the point, "I'll just do _that_ unless I get to sleep and stay asleep."

 "Would having someone there help?"

 "Meaning in the room?" When Bruce nodded, Tony scoffed, "You volunteering, Doc, because I'm not too keen on baring the arc reactor to strangers."

 "If you want."

 It clearly wasn't the answer Tony had been expecting, and if Bruce were being honest, it wasn't one he expected either, given the impeccably smooth way his lips drew back in a smirk without its usual derisive sharpness.

 "I'm flattered, Bruce." Tony laid a hand over the arc reactor, "It really warms that thing between the arc reactor and my spine."

 "Heart. The word you're looking for is heart."

 "I've been called heartless. They may well have been right."

 "No, I stand corrected, the words are 'utter' and 'bullshit'."

 And then he was laughing as Tony's hand shoved at his cheek and pushed his head to the side. He caught Tony's small, fond smile as his head turned with the force of it, and something in him lurched.

 "I reiterate, _such_ an asshole. You're sweet, but you're an ass."

 "Did Tony Stark just call me sweet? I might just _swoon_."

 "Right. I'd catch you." Tony said and his smile broadened. Bruce pantomimed swooning, throwing a hand over his face and slumping exaggeratedly against Tony. True to his word, Tony's hand crept along his shoulders and hoisted up from the floor, and onto his feet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you thought this chapter was going to be about Tony.
> 
> Sorry for the late update! I'm trying, I promise.


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